If You Belonged Here

Safe to Read: (pre) Twilight

I stole this picture from somewhere, and I should feel bad but I'm way too irritated with my healing wounds to give a good golly for anyone else's rights.

Nice picture, though.

Anyway, for those of you who are worried about what I am going to write and that there will be spoilers:

There will be no spoilers.

Find your safe place, but stay with me, people. I won't be ruining anyone's good time.

Today.

Anyway, this is what I want to tell you:

I love Young Adult fiction. Always have. Always will.

I started reading YA when I was more of a YC (that's Young Child) and from what I can tell I've just never gotten over it. I truly heart this audience. I truly heart being in this audience. So why, people, why was it so hard for me to answer the ultimate question:

Is this book YA?

Because time and again, those who read my draft and had enough market savvy to ask, have indeed posed the question. And my answer was always "I don't think so." Even after I read "The Secret Life of Bees," which, for the record, really put me on the fence. Because it was the only book I'd read that really felt like it was speaking to the same audience as my own super-secret novel. Then Bookgirl told me it was crossover, and low and behold, I got it.

In my mind, my audience has always been me and my Nana. We are the people who are reading me. And when I say me and my Nana, I mean sixteen-year-old me, and my Nana at any age she has ever been because she was born an old soul with a young heart. I think I get that from her.

Anyway, reading "Twilight," and the Gemma Doyle series, and "Gone with the Wind" brought it all home for me. These books reminded me why I love fiction, why I read fiction, why fiction is way better than non-fiction (memoir aside, unless the author honored fact over truth). Fiction makes sense, it transports, it teaches, it has wings and it lets the reader borrow them. Fiction fits like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and leave the reader over-the-moon entertained and educated and maybe even enlightened. Because every story is about every one of us, in some way shape, or form, if only because for a just a little while we get to live vicariously through the characters and gain the benefit of their experience without any of the lasting damage of their circumstances and choices.

Sweet Hank, I love a good read.

I also love a good write. I am so ready to pour myself a glass of wine and get to it. Good reading always means better writing. And if Stephenie Meyer can thank her husband and kids for sucking it up while she orders takeout so she can just finish, well, Mr. Poppins deserves some kind of pay off because frankly, people, he's got all of the takeout and none of the acknowledgment at the back of the wildly successful book(s).

And I can thank Stephenie Meyer (and Gemma's author, Libba Bray) for reminding me that I love a touch of fantasy with my fiction. I love Stephen King and Anne Rice, I love even the completely real magic of The Secret Garden and The Little Princess. I love all kinds of fairy dust and wicked witchery. I just freaking love it.

What else?

Oh, the PG-13-ness of YA. I am at my very heart a romantic. Not the ESFP kind of romantic, but the INTJ kind of romantic, where oneness focuses more on a meeting of the mind than a nearing of the nethers, although the latter certainly has its place. I like that YA lets so much hinge upon the first kiss.

I read a quote once that in American entertainment (as opposed to European and Foreign film and story), stories about adults are really stories about adolescents, but stories about children are actually stories about adults. I'm not sure that this is true, but it is what I want to write about: adolescents who are really adults, or who become adults by the time it is all said and done. I don't want my characters to make stupid choices or be willfully obtuse. I prefer that they struggle against circumstances beyond their control, their own naivety, and the overwhelming nature of hormonally driven emotions as yet untempered by real world experience.

Anyway, I'm am posting my review of the first book in the Twilight series next week. And then I'll post one a week thereafter until I'm through with Bella and Gemma and ready to read the last book in the Twilight series and then some girl who calls herself Sophie is in charge of my summer reading.

Wouldn't you know it? "Pride and Prejudice" is on Sophie's list. I already ordered it from amazon, although I have to say, The Dol gets credit if I love, love, love it.

And I plan on loving it.

Bruised in a New Place

I know that lots of things annoy me. Many of these things are such that other people don't even notice them, let alone share my grief. And yet, lots of things that annoy other people don't bother me at all.

There are differences between your average INTJ and your average person. For instance, I am fine if a friend just throws me a distracted wave at the grocery store without stopping to talk, but not if that same friend insists on talking when Secret Lulu clearly has limited patience. Sure, we can talk until she starts fussing but where does that leave me come check out?

The point isn't what annoys me, only that some stuff does and it can be weird stuff, little stuff, practically undetectable stuff. Stuff that is so idiosyncratic that it often requires an explanation of analysis.

Right now, my patience (or whatever passes for it in my emotional repertoire) is at an all time low. You see, I am not sleeping. I am constipated and, subsequently, bloated. I am sore. My breasts are still swollen and the feeling, which was blissfully gone, is coming back.

My body is talking to me again, and it's not saying nice things.

My results look great, if you can ignore the bruises, stitches, and scars. I can. But I'm tender as a newly blistered sunburn and I've been wearing a bra that, while it appears to fit perfectly, feels three sizes too small. I've been wearing that bra around the clock. It feels like a hair shirt, only instead of hair it's made of strings of cockleburrs.

If hunger pangs and an hour past my bed time are considered going too far, this is my idea of hell. Because I can't really eat anymore. Oh, I'm hungry but my intestines beg to differ. And even though I'm ready to pass out on my feet, as soon as I lay down I begin to swell and within an hour or three I am awakened by a dream of the death of a thousand paper cuts. Is it painful? Not exactly. But pain might be a welcome change from the steady itch, itch, itch and burn, burn, burn of my skin.

I don't take my pain meds anymore. They don't seem to help much, unless you think the smattering of adolescent-style acne on my forehead, chin, and cheeks is a good look for me and then, people, help has arrived.

And still, I'm glad I did it. I'm glad it's done. I'm glad that in a few more weeks this will seem as distant and irrelevant as any other minor thing that's ever been on my nerves. And even if some new nuisance rises up immediately to take the post-surgery recovery's place, well, it will feel good to be bruised in a new place.

As The Model likes to tell it, I am not a martyr. As Mr. Poppins likes to tell it, I would hire someone else to come in and do my sleeping for me if that were an option. As I like to tell it, I am thankful for my little nuisances because, hey, they're first world problems, right, and everyone knows those are the best kind of problems to have.

Breast reduction surgery is clearly already worth it. Very much worth it. Sore as I am, my neck and shoulders aren't bothering me one bit. To paraphrase something Diosa said after her surgery:

It's the first time since puberty that I've felt normal.

A.S.* The next post about my breasts will be the one where I finally go bra shopping and find out what size I am. That's going to be a few weeks or so.

In the meantime, I just finished book 3 in the Twilight series. Stephenie Meyer is not my personal friend, and I regret this deeply, if only because maybe she would have given me a final copy of book 4. As it is I'm going to be waiting in line at 10pm with teenagers, to get the last book in the series. Are you ready to talk about the first 3 books, people, because I'm more than ready. The post goes up tomorrow, Secret Lulu willing, and if not tomorrow, by Monday.

*A.S. is for Aside Script, because it's not really a post script, people, given that it was purposefully written as an aside to the main post in the time before the first posting.

Renewal

Value Wit is down, L Factor is going into witness protection, Bookgirl is just plain missing.

I think it must be spring. Actually, at 97 degrees, it seems like summertime.

I get restless at this time of the year. Really, restless. I want to improve, change, focus, refine; whatever, so long as it's better.

I'm in the mood for posts that are breezier than my usual posts. I'm in the mood for ice cream for dinner and italian ice for breakfast. I'm in the mood for margaritas all day long: watermelon, mango, lime, repeat. There's something nice about a gentle buzz carrying the day.

Still, I'm sober, unless you count the heavy duty narcotics I take before bed at night. And the woozy feeling I have because Secret Lulu is flicking the light switch on and off and saying "Mommy stinks, Mommy stee-inks, Mommy stinks!" over and over again, which reminds me, tomorrow is the last day of preschool until mid-July starts the new year. Three weeks is looking long from this side of summer break. We'll see where we are come Tuesday.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say, only that I miss you all and I'm looking forward to new bathing suits soon. If you want me, you can find me left of center--oops, make that to the right of the pretty blue pool, looking adorable in an oversized black straw hat and keeping an eye on Secret Lulu as she preps for the 2016 Olympics.